Someone recently asked me what I thought of the effort by a black American senior at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison, Wisconsin, who is circulating a petition to
change the name of the school, "citing the past president's history as a slaveholder." I responded that, however ironically, her effort may provide evidence that she's
doing the right thing, but for the wrong reason: "Any high school that produces seniors with so little understanding of their own and their nation's history doesn't
deserve to be named after James Madison." The student professes to believe that "the school's name is not fair to her and other black students." But without the
understanding of God-endowed right that James Madison and other framers of the Constitution successfully erected into the form of government our Constitution
establishes, it's quite likely that legally enforced slavery and racial discrimination would still flourish in some parts of the continent of North America.

Moreover, since that understanding has now been abandoned, in principle, by a significant proportion of America's most influential elites, it's no longer
unreasonable to expect that this high school senior, and most of the hundreds of her fellow students who signed her petition, will come to live under some form of
socialist ideological tyranny, like that of North Korea. Such a government will have suppressed the very idea of individual liberty. It will forcibly impose subservience
to the whims and passions of those whose exemplary service to THE STATE contributes to imposing the will of the collective as the prevailing instrument of history.
They will toil essentially as government slaves in a society from which all intermediary institutions (family, church, individually initiated economic and
social enterprise) have been eliminated, or else redefined to bring them under the bureaucratic dictatorship of whatever faction successfully monopolizes the levers
of government power.

Mya Berry's petition focuses on Madison's participation in the institution of slavery, as if James Madison was responsible for its existence in the United States. He
was born into a society that supported slavery by law, much as the United States of America is presently supporting abortion. Ironically, both these injustices are
supported by arguments that discard the rights of human beings, on the excuse that their physical appearance and/or moral and intellectual incapacity conclusively
impair their natural claim to be treated with the full respect other human beings may rightly demand.

However, James Madison had greater excuse for his participation in the injustice of slavery than the proponents of legalized abortion have for their support of that
crime against humanity. For he and his compatriots successfully devised a Constitution framed to constrain government within the bounds of God-endowed right,
equally entailed on all human offspring. Until they did so, it had been taken for granted that orderly government required the invidious distinction of persons that
raised some people to lawful power over others, supposedly according to nature, with or without their consent.

As Jefferson succinctly put it, the founders believed that "The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of
mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are
grounds of hope for others." What became of that hope depended on whether the seeds of human understanding Jefferson referred to would take root in the hearts
of a people whose reverence for God's authority would nourish it, so that it grew into a result that extended hope to all humanity.

Founders like Jefferson and Madison foresaw the crisis in which the moral will of the people of the United States would be tested against the institution of slavery.
Knowing that the moral hope might not be strong enough to prevail (which thought made Jefferson write "I tremble for my country when I think that God is just; that
his justice cannot sleep forever"), these men surely had reason to know that our nation would have no lasting prospect at all unless they succeeded in implanting its
seeds and premises in the first place. They rightly concluded that it made moral sense to give first priority to firmly implanting the standard of truth in America's heart, to grow
deeply enough to win the Providential battle to come.

Mya Berry and her fellow petitioners should ponder the fact that this is exactly what happened. The understanding of God-endowed right was upheld by the
American Declaration of Independence as first among the principles that informed America's understanding of the just powers of government. James Madison
repeatedly alluded to those principles as the touchstone for the framework of a government duly dependent on the goodwill of the people, but
constrained to respect the exercise of right and rights, according to God's will. In every successful advance of equal rights for all in the history of the United
States, the words and logic of the Declaration played a critical role, informing and empowering the conscience of our nation.

Americans, especially those who are black like me, should thoughtfully question the motives of those who purport to erase traces of past injustice but then,
knowingly or not, connive at results that will lead us to disremember how to think through and articulate the ideas that helped to defeat them. Mya Berry cites the
fears of her generation of black Americans. What she and others need now to remember is the courage it took to think, write, and battle against injustice when the
laws abetted and imposed it, and when death and wounds were the likely price to pay. In that context, it can seem a hopeless sacrifice. It proved otherwise because
of people like James Madison.

He was born into a society that justified slavery as lawful, just as many now justify the atrocity of abortion. But he and others like him were determined that the
nation they helped to found would begin from premises of justice that made conscience and the authority of God the allies of any of their posterity willing to act on
them. As a result, these premises were there to be evoked by such brave souls as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Tubman,
Susan B. Anthony, and Rosa Parks. Their courage contributed to extending the premises of justice ever more widely, to any and all who are willing to
practice them. Better to keep Madison's name on the high schools, colleges, universities, libraries, cities, and towns, etc., that
bear it, and so encourage new generations to learn how to live up to the heritage of reasoned liberty and justice, which the remembrance of Madison's life will
always challenge Americans to preserve and to transmit.

Alan Keyes

Dr. Keyes holds the distinction of being the only person ever to run against Barack Obama in a truly contested election – one featuring authentic moral conservatism vs. progressive liberalism – when they challenged each other for the open U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004... (more)

Dr. Keyes holds the distinction of being the only person ever to run against Barack Obama in a truly contested election – one featuring authentic moral conservatism vs. progressive liberalism – when they challenged each other for the open U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004.

During the Reagan years, Keyes was the highest-ranking black appointee in the Reagan Administration, serving as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations and as Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

He ran for president in 1996, 2000, and 2008, and was a Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 1988 and 1992, in addition to his 2004 candidacy for the U.S. Senate from Illinois.

He holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard and wrote his dissertation on constitutional theory.

His basic philosophy can best be described as "Declarationism" – since he relies on the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence to define the premises on which our country was founded, and to which it must remain committed if it is to survive. To Dr. Keyes, the Constitution itself cannot be faithfully interpreted, understood, or applied apart from the divinely-premised principles of the Declaration.

When Keyes ran for president in 2000, the media generally considered him the winner of the Republican primary debates, due to the persuasive eloquence of his defense of the unborn, opposition to unfair taxation, advocacy of school choice, promotion of family values, and focus on what he called "America's moral crisis." As a result, he became the host of MSNBC-TV's "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense" in 2002.

He is best known for thrusting the evil of abortion – which he considers our nation's "greatest moral challenge" – into the national spotlight.

Keyes is also a strong supporter of Israel, and in 2002 he was flown by the Israeli government to the Holy Land to receive an award for his staunch defense of Israel in the media. He is the only American ever to receive such an honor from the State of Israel.

When Keyes ran against Obama for the Senate in 2004, he did so because he was incensed the Democrat "community organizer" refused to support the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois on several occasions – a measure approved not long afterward by the U.S. Senate, 100 to 0.

Alan is available to address interested venues of students, educators, civic groups, professional organizations, public servants, political advocates, churches, and others who are interested in preserving our nation's institutions of liberty.

To arrange a speech or special appearance by Dr. Keyes, you can email him at: alan@<NOSPAM>loyaltoliberty.com.